Act
-Only animate objects may Act. No rocks, thus, can Act, though if dialoged from a mountain it can certainly create motion, but only living beings may Act. Act must be voluntary and purposive and must result in something new and existing. Only humans may Act.
Ex: The student had to Act upon her desire to receive an A in her Visual Rhetoric course, so she completed all the class work in a timely manner. (The student takes a voluntary Action to do class work in order to receive a positive grade)
Source: Rhetoric A Users Guide by John D. Ramage, Page 13
(Amber Howe)

Cases
-Situational occurences that can be examined in isolation, or within a context.
-EX: In terms of Law, Ramage uses the example of a Supreme Court decision (1896) that railroad companies should have alternate seating for black and white passengers, but that the decision did not imply any inferiority in terms of the black race. Looking at it in isolation, the decision (case) could seem 'innocent'; but looking at the history, and our knowledge of slavery and violence towards blacks, the case takes on a darker hew. So 'circumstances alter cases' and "one must look beyond the words on the page to the cirumstances that gave rise to them and to the consequences that flow from them to determine how to understand and judge them" (24)-Ramage
(Danica Cantrell)

Commonplaces:
Popular beliefs and ancient wisdom often preserved in old stories and lore that still appear throughout current rhetoric.
~Example: The generally accepted commonplace that absolute power corrupts absolutely can be observed throughout the history of many countries.
~Source: Rhetoric A User's Guide by John D. Ramage, pg 12
(Amanda Charles)

Common sense:
A belief or view that is (or was) commonly accepted to be wise and true in a group of like-minded people, despite that fact that these views often resisted change by the way of thinking that if the proposed change were good, it would already exist.
-Example: Before women's sufferage, the 'common sense' belief was that women were too irrational to vote.
-Source: Rhetoric, A User's Guide by Jogn D. Ramage, pg 19-20
(Lorin Weaver)

Community Standards
- Standards in the form of opinion, ideology, or values held by a certain community or society at any given time.
- Example: Ramage states that community standards greatly affect the way law is practiced in our country. Changes in the law are often motivated by changes outside of the law, he said. One of these changes outside of the law is community standards.
"The Supreme Court ruled that having the Ten Commandments displayed in a town's courthouse was unconstitutional, despite coming down on the opposite of that ruling ten years ago. It is suspected that such a decision reflects the change in community standards on that subject within society over those ten years." (example sentence not based on factual information)
-Source: Rhetoric, A User's Guide by John D. Ramage, pg. 22-23
(Jessica Allebach)